Queenly
by Silverblind
Summary: They met again and again and again - but they were never really together. One-Shot.


**A quick one-shot to satisfy my sudden urge to write some ZelGan. **

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The night was silent and still but for the wind that stirred the limbs of the tall trees surrounding the balcony on which she stood. The moon shone high in the dark, round and splendid, as it always was in her dreams.

She stood against the stone railing, gazing far ahead although there was nothing to see but an endless sea of leaves that rippled and moved as if alive with every breeze. The wind stirred the heavy silk of her skirts, and the tresses of her hair beat against the sides of her face. She could feel the cold seeping into her fingers through her gloves as she rested her hands on the frigid stone.

The door behind her opened, but she did not turn to see who had arrived, merely allowing a smile to bloom upon her lips. He had come again, as he had promised he always would.

"Princess," he greeted her, and she closed her eyes to better savour the voice she had so longed to hear. "Or should I say 'Queen'?"

"I have been queen for many years now," she acknowledged. "I have been on the throne for almost as long as you have been gone."

He came to stand next to her, placing his hand beside hers on the railing, never touching, allowing only the barest of brushes. A chuckle rumbled from his throat.

"It _has _been a long time," he admitted, and the corner of her eyes she could see his head bent in an almost apologetic fashion.

"And what have you been doing all this time?" she asked, although she knew the answer already.

"Waiting," he answered, as she knew he would. "Longing. Praying for the moment I would once more roam the Earth and see you again."

"Then I fear you may have to wait still," she answered. "I am old, and my body grows weaker by the day. Soon I will be too frail to even walk about the castle on my own. Already my children fret and try to take over more of my duties so that I do not exert myself. But if only they knew that I only longed for death…"

"Old?" he said. "You do not seem old to me."

She could see herself clearly then, as if she had been looking into a mirror; her hair, grey and brittle as it usually was, once again was the colour of spun gold she had so boasted of in her younger years. Her face was devoid of the wrinkles and lines she had come to accept as hers, and her skin was pale and smooth, the spots she had seen appear on her hands over the years gone. She could stand straight without pain, and her legs did not shake at the weight of her own body. She remembered her youth, when her beauty had been her greatest pride. She shook her head and felt her crown tremble upon her brow; she had been such a foolish girl.

"You know I never am in this place," she finally answered, and for the first time she looked at him. He was unchanged, but she had not expected anything else. He was as strong as ever, his dark armour gleaming in the silvery light of the moon. His eyes were two pools of molten gold that seemed to glow with their own light in the shade of the balcony, and in his fiery hair rested the barbed crown he had chosen for himself. She felt herself smile.

"And neither are you," she breathed.

He prowled closer then, a fanged smirk gracing his features as his fingers touched hers on the railing before running up her arm. She let him but a hand on her hip, the silk bunching in his grasp as he pulled her to him. She stretched her arms over his shoulders, languidly bringing her fingers together at the nape of his neck. She allowed the fingers of his free hand to run through her hair, gold tangling with ebony as she tilted her head back to look at him. She could almost feel his heart beating against hers.

She wished this was real.

Their lips met slowly, softly, neither demanding that one yield to the other. When they broke apart, night had become day. It was time.

"We will meet again," said he. "Soon."

"Twenty years is all I ask," answered she. "Then we shall be together again."

The rest was left unsaid, and, at her words, she woke.

The concerned face of her daughter hovered over hers.

"Mother?" she said when the older woman's eyes fluttered open. "You would not wake. The maid had to come get me."

"Illia?" the queen sat up in her bed. The curtains had been pulled back, and the light of the summer sun streamed in through the open window. She raised a hand to her face; the skin was spotted and wrinkled, mapped with veins. The fingers she ran through her hair came away gripping grey, brittle strands. She smiled.

"Illia, I dreamt I was young."

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**Bonus point to the person who can tell me where the last line comes from.**


End file.
